[jdlshore]

For those who aren’t aware, as I wasn’t, this is coming from the “VP of Community” at the Zig Foundation. So the proposal to soft ban LLMs at Zig Day meetups seems like it has a bit more weight than if it was some random community member.

(I’m not a member of the community, so not fully aware of the dynamics.)

[codethief]

I had the pleasure to talk to Loris about this topic just last week and I've liked his take very much.

His point is not coming from a place of LLM demonization. He very much acknowledges their usefulness, especially in a business context, e.g. for implementing yet another standard CRUD application and for shipping all the other "average" (in quality) business features quickly.

His point is a different one entirely: Say Andrew Kelley is attending the Zig Day. Why would you ask an LLM about a Zig programming problem you're struggling with instead of learning from the man himself? There's simply no LLM as knowledgeable about Zig as Andrew and the other people working on it or with it on the daily.

In other words: Zig Days are an opportunity for people to learn from each other and to spend time together (= the "Community" in "VP of Community"), and LLM are diminishing this opportunity.

Besides, Zig itself is mainly a language for people who care not just that a problem is solved but also about how it's being solved. ("Create software you can love.") While LLMs don't prevent anyone from doing so, they make it much more appealing to just vibe-code everything and not look too closely at the implementation.

[keybored]

Being negative against the utility of AI is sometimes besides the point or a strawman (don’t know about this instance). Only an idiot would argue that cars don’t have utility in cities and countrysides that are already paved over. Or that they are slower. Or that the train can get you from Bob’s to Burger Establishment with less walking. But they may want other things like more walkable cities and less mass extinction in a hundred years time.

No one needs to proclaim the utility of The Car before criticizing car culture.

This piece already says that all the clanker maximalism may be correct. shrugs Then it says that this get-together is for people who like programming. Even if the whirlwind of progress comes and takes their profession. Because then it could still be a hobby.

And this is too negative-against-AI for some people in this thread? Programming as a hobby? Okay, fine. Maybe we will have sold off all our RAM in a years time and the Government will have outlawed unassisted programming as too dangerous. The piece is too optimistic.

[hobofan]

This didn't sound like a "soft ban" to me.

With things happening in general, and with Bun's LLM-aided move away from Zig in particular, there is bound to be some interest in talking about LLMs and how that impacts Zig's future.

I think this was a well measured "hey, let's focus on thing we are coming together to celebrate and advance: Zig".

[ratstew]

Isn't "soft ban" still a bit harsh? I think it was reasonable take and a good reminder of the purpose of these events.

[altairprime]

Only in the sense that community leadership is harsh by nature. ‘We’d rather you didn’t do that’ is the essence of a soft ban and what they’ve expressed as leader here, and even a soft ban muffling topics and therefore a subset of people, which is often seen as ‘harsh’.

[tolerance]

> Isn't "soft ban" still a bit harsh?

Not necessarily. The take is reasonable but I'm curious about who could be bold enough to actually talk about or disclose their use of LLMs during these events.

[kristoff_it]

The whole reason for this blog post is because discussion about LLMs does happen already (to the point of being a bit suffocating).

see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48314145

[tolerance]

It's funny (or sad) how I read this as an address about pro-LLM speech when "talking about LLMs" doesn't have to be just that.

I appreciate the clarification.